EN: "Achievements of Israeli students in science and technology have long-term implications. The Israeli high-tech industries are a major part of economy and exports. Successful development of these industries depends on high quality personnel in fields of engineering, sciences and technology. For a long time, the Israeli education system hardly coped with the challenge of increasing the amount of students who excel in science and technology. In 2010, the Minister of Education designed a strategic plan to strengthen science and technology studies. "Technology and Science Excellence Student Reserve" is a key project in this plan which sets the criterion for a high quality science and technology matriculation diploma. Analysis shows, that the program’s goal of increasing the amount of students who complete high quality science and technology matriculation diploma should rise from 6% to 14% within 3-5 years and reach 20% within 6-9 years, appears feasible. This study estimates the unrealized potential of students in science and technology, maps barriers that impair its realization, and suggests possible ways to deal with them. Setting quantitative targets, adding teaching resources and focusing on detection, guidance and improvement of persistence capability is expected to significantly increase the amount of excellent students. These systemic efforts will improve the competitive edge of Israel in growth-leading industries."Dr. Ofer Rimon, Director of the Administration for Science and Technology and of the Administration for ICT and Information Systems, Ministry of Education, Israel.

*** Israel participates in the second batch of countries in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and results will become available in 2016. See: www.oecd.org/site/piaac/#d.en.221854

The Strategic Program for Strengthening the Scientific-Technological Education Its target is to reach the proportion of the OECD countries for students in scientific-technological disciplines that stand at 46%. For achieve this purpose additional teaching hours have been added in the Junior High-Schools (some 12,500 per year), additional disciplines were added, increase the enforcement of the number of actual teaching hours, the disciplines were more clearly defined with stress on the knowledge required in each of the areas (chemistry, physics, biology), and the in-service training programs was increased. This is a long-term program to improve the knowledge and skills of Israel students in the Scientific and Technological disciplines beginning at an early stage. Reserve and Leadership program in Science and Technology: Its purpose is to encourage schools to strengthen technological studies and increase the proportion of students that excel in these areas. An excellence track has been developed which should double and then triple the number of excellent students; it gives preference to girls and to populations in the geographical and social periphery. To achieve its goals the strategic framework includes the following programs: Industry leap; The TOV program (technicians and baccalaureate); the Nahshon program (intensive tutoring of students in High School in the scientific disciplines); establishment of regional technology centers in the north and south; a coordination program with the IDF; empowerment in the area of robotics; re-training of hi-tech industries personnel for technological education in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance. See: cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/MadaTech/englishsifria/Technology/hazon_veraziona_english.htm

The Administration for Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education runs a variety of programs and disciplines relevant to the formation in areas related to software, computer sciences, computer engineering. Some of them are part of the Technological Tracks and include: Electronics and Computer Engineering ; Software Engineering; Communication Technologies; ICT track; Control and Energy; Computerized Production Systems. Additionally the Administration runs post-secondary complementary two year courses immediately leading to a practical engineering Certificate. Among them: Mechatronics; Electronics and Computer Engineering; Software Engineering; ICT Systems. At the junior high school level a very innovative program is that of the Clusters for Science, Technology and the Arts (Eshkolot Pais) that are environments rich for investigative and experiential learning; they provide an inviting setting for active and independent learning in laboratories for science and technology and art studios. There are now 80 such buildings from the north to the south of the country serving a cluster of schools in each town.